The weather forecast today in Prince George calls for a mix of sun and cloud and a 60 per cent chance of showers this afternoon.
Trevor Shoaf plans to be on the golf course today swinging his clubs in the Prince George Cougars Alumni Hospital Charity golf tournament and he says he's praying for rain.
Wet weather might inconvenience the players involved in the tournament at Prince George Golf and Curling Club, but the 41-year-old former Cougar defenceman would welcome news that showers were dousing the wildfires raging south of the city the past week.
"I've been on Twitter for the last three days, looking at the Cariboo and Interior and you just want rain, you want this fire to go away," said Shoaf, 41, a born-and-bred P.G. boy who joined the Cougars in 1994, their first season in Prince George, after starting his WHL career in Spokane.
"I'd play in the rain if I knew it was going to out some fires out. I know I won't be on fire when I'm playing."
The son of Andy and Rose Shoaf lives in North Vancouver, where he's a director for a company that distributes raw materials. He's been in the Vancouver area for 20 years, having played five years as as a defenceman at UBC, starting when he left the Cougars after his 19-year-old season in 1996.
Shoaf captained the T-birds his final two seasons at UBC and went on to play semipro in Tulsa, Okla., Tacoma, Wash., and Binghampton, N.Y. All his minor hockey was with Prince George teams.
"Me and Shawn Gendron played as 15-year-olds for the Spruce Kings (in 1991) and I had my only hat trick when I was 15, but no one knows that I'm from here," said Shoaf.
"Prince George got the team after my 17-year-old year in Spokane and I asked for a trade to play in front of my parents."
The Cougars Alumni, the Cougars Society and the Spirit of the North Healthcare Society have teamed up to provide a $10,000 to fund local fire relief efforts.
"Prince George is one of those places that if things go bad for all those communities on evacuation alert, they're going to come here and this community is awesome, they're going to look after them," said Shoaf, who made the trip home with his Prince George wife Lisa (nee Stevens) and their two kids. "You see on Twitter all these people opening up their places for the animals and letting them have RVs on their driveways and that's awesome."
Cougar alumni Dan Hamhuis grew up in Smithers, four hours west of Prince George, and never encountered anything like the wildfire situation now affecting the province. With upwards of 7,000 evacuees having registered at the Prince George emergency centre at the College of New Caledonia, the scale of the disaster for those people and the stress they are under worrying about the homes they left behind is hard to comprehend for the Dallas Stars defenceman.
"It's a scary situation here in B.C. this year and I certainly feel for the people directly affected by it and are displaced," said Hamhuis, 34, who played for the Cougars from 1998-2002.
"Prince George is so great at hosting things and great at taking care of people and that is a big reason why this tournament is so important for all of us alumni to come back. The community embraced us when we played here and gave us the opportunity to have a great time here and it continues to go on. People here are taking in people who have been displaced and I'm not surprised by any of that. It shows the type of people who live in this community."
Cody Carlson, 26, played two seasons for the Cougars from 2010-12 after a trade from Regina. He just finished a season with the Braehead Clan in Glasgow, Scotland and is heading to Atlanta to finish his hockey career in the ECHL. Carlson is an aspiring firefighter from Victoria who did his boot camp training in Texas and he knows about the long hours and unpredictable conditions facing the firefighters now dealing with in the Interior wildfires. He hopes everyone affected by the fires, especially those camped out in the city at evacuation centres, will soon be able to return to their homes.
"We did five days of live fires (in training) and it's not easy for anybody, but forest fires are 10 times harder than any residential fire and the fact that half of the firefighters are volunteers is an even bigger step and good on them," said Carlson.
"The city of Prince George is obviously doing a great job and that's just how you think of Prince George. They've always taken care of their people and their sports teams and it doesn't surprise me at all. I loved it here, it was probably one of the best times of my life."
